Of Tornados and Treasures

Today is the day that our family celebrates two little boys coming to us making our child total to the number seven.)Isn’t that the number that means complete? That's what I'm counting on.)

The journey began when my husband and I thought what a great ministry we could share if we became foster parents. Our county was struggling with a deeply embedded drug problem and foster parents were in short supply for the children from homes of parents struggling with addiction. We had hoped that while we kept the children safe, fed, warm, and loved, we could also be a presence in the life of the parent that was trying to rebuild and regain their children.

I have always heard that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans! Our first two foster children stayed…forever. We stuck with our plan but God showed us that that was not the completion of His plan.

The boys came to us the day of clean up from a devastating tornado. We had spent the day at a friends home, finding family photos and mementos that were strewn across their property. At one pony our dear friend, Rachel realized her wedding rings, her mother’s and her father’s were missing form the place she always left them. She was heart-broken as she looked at the missing walls and roof and the vast area her belonging were scattered. My daughter, Jill, never one to give up and always the first to turn to God, began the process of looking past the big mess to find the small treasures. Hidden under a wall, in the grass and under a bed, Jill found all three sets of rings.  We often correlate the confusion and mess from the tornado with the confusion and devastation we faced the first few weeks of adjust meant to having these two little creatures. Nine months later, their mama relinquished her rights because she just couldn't find a way to get clean. At the ripe old age of 41 for me and 44 for Joe, we became the parents of two bouncing baby toddlers. We tried hard to find the small treasures in the big mess.

With them came new experiences having been the mother of girls. I never allowed violence or guns in my home but with the boys came constant wrestling that turned into vicious fighting and everything was turned into a gun; even an upside down Barbie became a make-believe weapon (legs make a great gun barrel, apparently.)

I have had to learn to let a few things go. I used to worry more about matching clothes, weather appropriate attire, and bedroom organization. I have had to learn to endure stepping on Legos in the middle of the night, finding Tostitos and tub of butter under my child's bed (don't ask) and walking into the basement to find my son skinning his latest critter and he trapped so he can sell the pelt. (I did make him promise this wouldn’t lead to a life of serial murder a la Silence of the Lambs.)

I have learned about sports injuries, individual education programs, dirt bikes and video games. There are days when I feel like I have become an expert in autism and advocacy for classroom accommodations and then there are days when I feel like I'm absolutely helpless in the lack of knowledge that I possess.

But as I sit and look at my two boys who were almost ferrel when they came,  I realize that God knew more than I did.  The two boys came into my home the day following the biggest tornado that swept through our County, covered in the debris of the brokenness of drug addiction, damaged by the storms of unattended health and developmental issues, and marred by the challenges that they had to face in there very young lives, have grown into near-men, accomplished in so many areas. They have brought a sense of balance to our lives. 

Through the clean up, emotionally and physically, I have learned how to heal my personal scars. Through working through living with challenges I am better equipped to help others with their hurdles. Through letting go of standards that really don’t matter, I am beginning to discover what really does matter. And the big lesson is that God has a plan that supersedes our narrow focus on life.

Where are you open to the tornados of life? The places when God sweeps in and leaves debris and damage behind that is not of His doing but a place where you can come along and clean up using only the power and might of God.